


there are no rules when you show up here

by glitteration



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: (it's complicated), Canon Typical Violence, Dubious Consent, F/F, Phone Sex, file under sorry not sorry, frank discussion of canon typical violence, happy endings depend entirely on where you stop the story, i would say it's not the healthiest dove in the land, i wouldn't say this dove is DEAD, murder girlfriends nontraditional courtship, pretentious imagery 'r us, villanelle is her own warning tbqh, villanelle is secretly a feral cat, violence as sex talk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-14
Updated: 2018-08-19
Packaged: 2019-06-27 05:43:01
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15679161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitteration/pseuds/glitteration
Summary: this is why we can't have nice things, darling( eve goes ahead and hops out of the frying pan only to launch herself straight into the fire. post-s1 fic, told entirely through phone calls. working title in my gdocs was "the one with all the problematic phone sex" )





	1. Chapter 1

After Villanelle disappears in Paris, life goes on. Eve goes to work, she goes home; home, work, work, home, both an endless series of dead ends. Niko prefers to communicate by text when he's speaking to her at all, and Villanelle... Villanelle is just gone. There are no gifts, no calls, no visits, but her body never turns up in any of the Parisian morgues Eve has Kenny hack into twice a week, even as those weeks stretch on into months. Elena calls her Schrödinger's assassin, and she's not funny but she's also not wrong. There's nothing to suggest Villanelle is alive _or_ dead. There's just... nothing. A vast gulf of nothing, opaque and impenetrable. 

Eve tells herself she's relieved. She tells herself a lot of things, but when she gets home from work and there’s a little carved box waiting on her doorstep, her pulse picks up despite its innocuous appearance. She blinks down at it, squinting to pick out the pattern; it’s some kind of seabird, maybe a gull or an albatross. From the Pacific Northwest, maybe, but either way it shouldn't be taking up space on her front steps.

“Great. Another mystery.” Maybe this one she can actually solve.

Carolyn had told them she’d reassembled the team ‘upon reflection, and in deference to Eve’s new level of physical engagement’. Since then she’s said all the right things—in some ways she's _easier_  to work for. More willing to pay for things, at least. It all looks right on the surface. Despite the newly loosened purse strings no one sane would ever call the way Carolyn handles the office laissez faire, and all the same Eve can’t shake the feeling that the woman supposedly employing them to chase Villanelle is perfectly happy with their complete lack of progress.

It makes keeping her mouth shut about her suspicions borderline unbearable, but finding Villanelle without Carolyn’s backing would require the kind of money and resources she just can’t muster up on her own. Faced with that reality, pretending she doesn’t think Carolyn is at best compromised and at worst part of The Twelve herself is a necessary evil.

_Brrrrrrrrrng._

Eve jumps at the loud ring, heart pounding wildly. “Fuck. _Fuck_.” It’s coming from the box.

She should kick it into the street. She should bring it to work, open it and then hand whatever’s inside over to Kenny, because the only person she can think of who would leave her a phone inside a delicately carved box inevitably worth ten times more than anything decorative she's ever purchased for herself is _supposed_  to exist in the work half of her neatly segmented life.

Instead, she transfers her battered styrofoam container of takeaway curry to her left hand and snatches it up, shoving it into her purse before she can listen to the advice of her better angels. It takes her three tries to get the key in the lock and another two to lock it again behind her once she’s inside. For a moment she just stares down at the fine trembling in her hand as the ringing bounces off every flat surface in her empty house and fills it entirely.

Adrenaline. That’s all any of this is: chemical chain reactions born out of stimulus. She’s not Eve Polastri, making the latest in a series of mistakes that will inevitably cost her what she hasn’t already lost. She’s a chemical reaction, like the trembling in her hands or gasoline meeting open flame. “Hello?”

“Don’t hang up.”

Villanelle’s voice sends a shock straight down to her toes. Reflexively, Eve snaps the phone shut. It rings again, immediately, and she swallows back a scream. “Villanelle?”

“I _said_ , don’t hang up.”

“Sorry.” The word leaps from her mouth, barely more than a croak. “I didn’t—are you all right?”

“You stabbed me. So, I’ve been better.”

Heartbeat racing, Eve does her best to sort through the thoughts jostling for attention, and lands on the one screaming the loudest. “Villanelle, I’m… I’m sorry. I tried to find to find you, after you left. I wanted to help you.”

“Mmm.” She hums noncommittally, and Eve holds her breath. “I will call again later. Enjoy your dinner.”

“Wait, no, Villanelle—” The line is silent. “Shit.”

 

* * *

 

When she calls again, Eve has a list of questions she needs answered neatly laid out in black pen waiting by the phone, with the most important one circled in red.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“No.”

Shutting her eyes, Eve curses her inability to leave a scab alone long enough to heal. “Why not?”

“Well, I was going to do it. At first.”

Her heart beats a frantic drumbeat against her breastbone. “So what changed?”

“I let off some steam.” The expression sounds odd in her accent, and Eve’s attention sharpens. For an entirely unpredictable woman, her patterns are easy enough to pick up on. The more Russian she sounds, the closer she is to being Oksana; the more European she is, the closer to Villanelle.

Thinking of Oksana and Villanelle as two distinct people is undoubtedly another sign she’s too deep down this well already, but what’s a few inches more once you’re already stuck in a spiral?

“And how’d you do that?”

“I found a woman. One with hair like yours, only bigger. Bigger tits, too.” She pauses to let the barb sink in. “Then I brought her home.”

There’s an acrid taste to her dawning horror Eve refuses to label as jealousy. “And then?”

“And then when she tried to kiss me goodbye, I took out a knife and put it in her side. Right where you stabbed me.”

“Jesus. Oh, god… Villanelle, fuck. _Fuck_.” Panic roars in her ears, turns her knees to water. It’s too easy to picture. “Oh, god.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. Better her than you, don’t you think?”

 _Yes_. Yes, she does think that, with the same desperate instinct for survival that drives an animal in a trap. The bitterness of self-recrimination coats her tongue and makes it hard to swallow. “So she paid for what I did.”

“Now you’re beginning to understand.” Villanelle sounds pleased, like a teacher congratulating a favored pupil. “I’ll call back tomorrow, when you’re less upset.”

 

* * *

 

 

“What happens if I just don’t answer the phone?” Eve cuts over Villanelle’s hello with the demand. Guilt gave way to fury over the course of the day, and she can feel the surging pound of her pulse in her ears. “You can’t expect me to drop my life and lie to my coworkers longterm and be your secret pen pal whenever you want. You have to know that.”

“It’s true, I can’t make you do anything.”

“But?”

“But if you don’t, I’ll have to find other ways to occupy my time.”

“...are you threatening to murder people if I don’t sit by the phone?”

“Yes.”

There’s a complete lack of shame in her answer Eve can’t help but envy, in the detached way nature documentaries make it hard not to root for the lion. Villanelle will do it, and she won’t lose sleep over any of her kills; it’s only Eve who suffers the affliction of empathy.

“Jesus, you’re psychotic.”

“Is that a yes?”

“You know it is.”

“Whenever I call, you’ll answer?”

“Whenever you call.”

“And you won’t lie to me, will you?”

“No.” _You’re not going to kill me, are you?_ It feels like years since she’d asked for a reassurance she never gave, and the warning hidden there makes her heart beat faster. “Are you going to lie to me?”

Villanelle laughs. “Not about anything important.”

“Knowing you, that leaves the field wide open.”

“Good night, Eve. Don’t let the bugs bite.”

 

* * *

 

“Where are you?”

“Do you really think I’m going to answer that?”

Eve sighs. “No.”

 

* * *

 

It becomes a thing. The kind of thing she really shouldn’t be getting into.

“Villanelle?” It was late when the phone rang; it’s early, now, but she can hear what sounds like midday traffic on the other end of the line. _At least one time zone ahead_ , her mind whispers. _Kenny could do something with that._

“Yes?” Villanelle’s breathing is slow and even. She’s absolutely the kind of person who takes naps in the afternoon, but the piece of Eve she’s coming to realize grows exponentially with each call thrills at the idea that she’s adjusted herself to London time.

“Why’d you send me a burner? I haven’t changed my number.”

“Why’d you answer?”

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“And I wanted to talk to you.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t explain—”

“I wanted to talk to you _without_ them listening.”

“...you really think they’re listening to my phone?”

“Do you really think they aren’t?”

Eve sighs. Of course they are. She’d embarrassed Carolyn and burned one of her best contacts, and if she really is working with the Twelve she’s also managed to throw dirt on her perfect cover. “No. But they probably have my apartment bugged too, if they’re recording my calls.”

“They don’t.”

“Why do you sound so sure?”

“Look, it was a _favor_. You should thank me, really.”

“Villanelle, what did you do?”

“I had someone come by and check, and now your house is clean of bugs. You’re welcome.”

 _We can’t do this_ she thinks about saying. _I can’t do this. I can’t keep pretending this won’t blow up in my face._ This may as well be an engraved invitation from the part of her that knows better to hang up, head directly for the office, get Kenny on tracing where her calls have been. Villanelle sent god only knows who to sweep for bugs, without asking, and she wants to be thanked for it.

It’s insane, but Eve can’t help but feel like she deserves a certain amount of gratitude.

“Thank you. That’s incredibly invasive, and more than a little upsetting, but also… good to know.”

“You are terrible at thank yous, Eve.” She laughs, magnanimous like only a born predator can be. “It’s all right, I forgive you.”

 

* * *

  

“Do you still think about me? Like you said in the apartment.” There are cicadas on Villanelle's end of the line. They fill the spaces between her words with an eerie, almost sweet song.

“No.” Holding her breath, Eve plunges off the cliff. “I think about you more, now.”

“Mmm.” Villanelle hums, quiet and pleased. “So do I.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Update: the dove is on life support and things ain't looking good for that poor bird. If that's not your jam, please mosey on by.

“Konstantin found me in prison. He came for Nadia, but he left with me,” Villanelle brags, and Eve snorts.

“Wasn’t she your ex? That was nice of you.”

Villanelle sounds delighted. “Are you jealous, Eve?”

“No.” Yes. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m just trying to figure out how all these pieces fit together. So you met in prison, hooked up, and then when a secret multinational criminal organization came to recruit her, you stole her spot?”

“That’s about it, yes. What about you? Where did you learn to be such a good detective?” There’s a mix of scorn and admiration in her voice that makes Eve want to gnash her teeth. Turn your head one way, Villanelle is mocking her for the long series of godawful choices that led them to these phone calls; turn it the other and she’s as reluctantly impressed by Eve as Eve is by her.

“Why don’t you we talk about you some more?”

“We already did that. It’s time to talk about you now.”

Villanelle has a habit of revealing crucial pieces of the puzzle that created a woman who is made of nothing _but_ puzzles and then yanking them back and skipping away before they can fully come into focus. It’s maddening, but so is everything else about her.

Eve can’t tell if it’s purposeful and she’s dangling these confessions like a string over a cat, or if it’s just who she _is_.

Maybe it’s both. Most likely it’s both.

“It’s not as exciting as assassin training. I went to a prep school in Connecticut.”

“Did you have a little skirt?”

“It wasn’t a Catholic school.”

“A shame. You have wonderful legs. I will get you a skirt next time,” she purrs in satisfaction. “A pencil skirt. With pinstripes.”

“I don’t need a pencil skirt.” _And you shouldn’t be sending me gifts_ , she doesn’t add, because that ship has long since sailed and, if she’s entirely honest, she _wants_ them, with a sharp-edged, bottomless depth that should scare her more than it does.

“Trust me, you do. Your clothes are terrible.”

“They’re _fine_.”

“They are _terrible_. Your coats could hide a circus.”

“They’re coats. They keep me warm, they’re doing their job.”

“ _Pfft_.” Over the line, Eve can hear the stark _click-click-click_ of heels on tile, the creaking of wood, and then a muted swish of fabric. “My coats are warm. They do not make me look like I am smuggling small people inside.”

Offense and humor yank her in different directions. “Well, excuse the hell out of me. Sorry my terrible coats offend your delicate sensibilities.” Reluctantly, laughter bubbles up in her chest. “You’re such an asshole.”

“But you like me.” Hidden under the cockiness is a whisper of vulnerability.

The idea of teasing out whether it’s real or if this is just another test is too much, and the memory of the real horror in Villanelle’s eyes when she’d shoved the blade in too fresh. “I do. I really shouldn’t, but I do.”

 

* * *

 

Villanelle misses a night, and Eve tells herself she’s grateful for the break. Maybe this means the bubble of insanity that was Villanelle has finally popped, and she can cast around for the pieces of her life and see about stitching them together again.

She answers before the first ring has finished, the next night.

“What happened? Is everything all right?”

“You were worried about me!” Villanelle crows, and Eve can’t tell if she’s more relieved that she’s fine or disgusted because she sounds so fine.

“Well, clearly I didn’t need to be. What happened?”

“People told me about a man who knew The Twelve.”

Eve sits upright like she’s been yanked by a string, the same kind of curiosity that led her to build a file on Villanelle before she’d known for sure she existed burning in her belly again. “And?”

“And so I went to talk to him.”

“Just tell me what he said.”

Villanelle sighs, sad as any lost little lamb. “He was not feeling chatty. So, I tried to convince him. He was more open then.”

How easy it is to brush past the suggestion of torture is another thing that should bother her. Excitement fizzes in her blood. “What did he tell you then?”

“People lied. He did not know their names, only more like Konstantin.”

“ _Damnit_.” Eve slaps her thighs, frustrated. “Did he know anything useful? Anything at all… locations, other contacts…”

“Look at you,” Villanelle sounds like she’s grinning. “Do you want to help me next time, Eve? Make me a list of questions before I go?”

“Cut the shit. Yes or no?”

“No.” Real pique cuts into her voice. “He was a rude old man. He tried to shoot me before I even hurt him at all.”

Eve swallows hard. “But you did… hurt him?”

“Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.” She shapes the word with exquisite care, rounding off each corner precisely. “I want to know.”

“All right, if you say so. I was angry, so I broke his hand when I took his gun. Then I hit him with it.”

“His gun?”

“Well, it wasn’t his hand.”

Eve feels the surreal urge to laugh fizz and froth over inside her, like leftover champagne overflow. “And then what?”

“I tied him down, and when he had no answers for me I stabbed him. There is an artery, in the belly, if you know where to aim… it makes death quick.” She clicks her tongue in mock-regret. “My aim was very, very bad. It took him almost an hour to die, and he begged the whole time. It got a little annoying, to be honest.”

“Oh.” Eve looks down at her kitchen tile, and her bare toenails, and the kind of spinning, out of body disorientation she hasn’t felt since college and too many pot brownies seizes her. “Did you like the parts that weren’t begging?”

“Are you sure you want to know?” Villanelle asks again. Her sudden emphasis on consent is almost laughable; of course _now_ Eve has to ask for it and swear she wants this.

“Just tell me.”

“Yes. He bled, and he cried, and he got smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller.” Fabric rustles and she inhales, deeply, a woman remembering a particularly fantastic lover. “He was so big, and he begged me to let him live. He said I could kill his mother, if I wanted, if only I let him up.”

Disgust surges in her; god only knows if it’s for the man in the chair, or Villanelle, or herself. “Somehow I don’t think he came up with that himself.”

“Oh, no, he did. I asked him, what terrible things would he do if I let him live? She was only the first.”

“Jesus,” Eve whispers, swallowing hard.

“They tell you it’s messy, but they don’t tell you about the eyes.” There’s a low current of wonder in her voice. “They grow so wide, and you can see all the way to the bottom. All their secrets, gone, and in their place only fear.” There’s another gentle sliding sound of fabric, and Eve’s eyes narrow. “You should see it. You’d understand if you saw it, the way the their eyes change. We could do it together.”

“Holy shit, are you _masturbating_ right now?”

“Maybe,” she draws the word out into a sing-song, and the fabric sounds grows louder. “You would like it. Tell me you would like it.”

Something thick and syrupy pools in her abdomen. Dragging in a breath, Eve pushes it away and shakes her head, over and over like the motion will somehow manage to ward off reality. “I’m not telling you I would like killing someone so you can get yourself off. That’s not _dirty talk_ , that’s… I don’t even know what to call that, but I’m not doing it.”

Villanelle’s breath stutters and stops and then resumes again, heavy and languid. “It’s all right, that was good too. I have to get on a plane, now. Sleep tight, Eve.”

The dial tone sounds, and Eve looks down at the phone. “It’s three am, you complete psycho.”

Which one of them she’s talking to is another mystery only the divine can sort out, because Eve’s at a total loss.

 

* * *

 

 

“Did _you_ like it?” Villanelle sounds a little out of breath, like she’d been running, or having sex. Or killing someone, and Eve does her level best not to picture any of the options in their full technicolor glory.

“Did I like what?” She knows what. She’s been waiting for this since Villanelle told her about the curator, and each call that ended without the question being asked ramped the tension to a height where Eve feels ready to crack down the middle.

Villanelle clicks her tongue. “You know what I mean.”

“No.” Villanelle scoffs and Eve shoves her hair out of her face, glaring down at the phone. “What? I didn’t.”

“Liar.” She sings the word, mocking as any child. “Don’t make me find another one to punish for you. It’s late… who knows what kind of person I might find? What if I find a lost child… or a kitten? You wouldn’t want a kitten on your conscience, would you?”

“God, fuck you. You’re such an asshole.” Eve takes a long slug of wine, moving to sprawl inelegantly across the sofa. “I didn’t enjoy stabbing you.” But _had_ she? She’d felt ill, and panicked, but there’d been something… “I _didn’t_. But...”

“But?”

“But I felt…” Powerful. Triumphant. “I don’t know. Something. Maybe you’re right, maybe there’s a piece of me that liked some part of doing it.”

“You were fierce. Like a tiger.”

“Villanelle…”

“Why did you do it?” She executes one of her lightning quick mood changes, and Eve is reminded all over again that they aren’t _friends_. This isn’t a normal chat before bed, this is the product of obsession and blackmail and it may well get her killed. “We were having such a nice talk.”

“I don’t know.” The kitchen clocks ticks, quiet and banal and she wants to rip it off the wall, to trash her own place like she had Villanelle’s.

“You promised not to lie to me. You know.”

“I _don’t_.”

“You studied me, I studied you. You know. One more chance, Eve.”

“Because you said you didn’t think I could!” Spittle hits the mouthpiece and Eve flinches back from the slap of her own volume. Her breath comes in short, quiet pants.

Silence bobs and weaves and forces her further back into a corner, until finally Villanelle laughs, deep and hearty. “So if I’d said ‘oh please, Eve, I am so scared. Please, don’t stab me’ we could have gone to bed together instead?” She giggles, a high sound at the back of her nose. “It’s a little crazy of you, don’t you think?”

“Oh, it’s entirely crazy. _You_ make me crazy. I wasn’t like this before. I had a life, and a husband, and a boring job I was very good at anyway, and now…”

“And now you have me, instead.”

Eve rests her head in her hands, twining her fingers through her curls and giving the hair she’s gathered a punishing yank. “You forgot the really cool clothes.”

Villanelle laughs again, as delighted as any child at Christmas. “Sleep well, _la tigresse_.”

She hangs up. Eve finishes the bottle of wine she started at dinner, watching the battery indicator on the charger glow a reliable, accusatory green.

 

* * *

 

“Kenny said you were spotted in Nairobi. What the hell are you doing in _Nairobi_?”

“I needed a new hat.”

“A new—fine, don’t tell me.”

“And to kill a man, but it was a lovely hat.”

 

* * *

 

Something changed after the night they finally talked about it. Villanelle is still demanding and capricious and prone to dramatics, but something about Eve losing her mind and stabbing someone because they said she couldn’t soothed her ego and sheared away the delicate hints of insecurity.

“What color underwear are you wearing?” Her demands have gotten more creative, too.

“I’m not telling you that.” Eve rolls her eyes and prods at the noodles on the stove with a spatula, frowning when they refused to assemble themselves into one of the recipes Niko left behind of their own volition.

“But I want to know!”

“And I’m still not telling you.”

“I can make it easy. If you don’t, I’ll kill someone.”

“You can’t—” Eve sets down the spatula and collapses heavily into a kitchen chair, blood rushing to her head. “That’s insane, Villanelle. Even you have to know you can’t just… threaten to murder someone so I’ll tell you about my underwear.”

“Mmm. Maybe so, but will it work? That’s the real question.”

She’s playful, not angry, but Villanelle’s playful moods are just as dangerous as her anger and twice as fickle. Eve tells herself she only answers to avoid a body count, but the same frisson of excitement she’d felt grasping the hilt in her hand licks like fire at her extremities. “Fine. They’re black.”

“‘They’re black’.” She sighs, drawing the words out like Eve is a small child refusing to follow instructions. “Black what?”

“Black… cotton, probably? Cotton-poly blend? I don’t know.”

“ _Cotton_.” She says it like Eve’s announced she wears underwear made of actual compost. “I will buy you silk ones. In red. Are you wet?”

It takes her a moment to process the question. “Am I… Christ. Villanelle…”

“Remember our deal?”

“I do.”

“So, are you?”

The urge to lie prickles along her skin. No, she’s not wet, because she’s not a total fucking psychopath, and she’s not getting off on any of this.

But she _is_ , so much so that when she presses her thighs together she can feel it. It takes three tries to get her answer out past frozen lips. “Yes.”

“I thought so. Don't worry, I won't make you touch yourself. But, if you wanted to do it later and think of me...”

Disappointment cores her out and guilt fills her full; then anger follows and sucks them both dry. “You are such a dick.”

“But you still like me.”

Sleep doesn’t come easy once Villanelle laughs wildly and hangs up. Once she manages it, she dreams of the way it felt to pull out the knife.

She wakes up feeling more alive than she has in years.

 


	3. Chapter 3

“Did you have a good time after we hung up last night?”

A day spent reassuring herself she was a grown woman and she wouldn’t pretend a natural response to stimulus is worth any shame trickles down the drain, and Eve feels the stinging tightness in her cheeks that means she’s gone all-over mottled red. “Oh, fuck you.”

Villanelle clicks her tongue regretfully. “I did try, but you stabbed me instead.”

 _Jesus_. That startles a harsh bark of laughter out of her. “Yeah, well. Maybe I had the right idea.”

“Mmm, but now we know you would miss me if I was gone.”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Should is boring,” Villanelle intones with all the authority of a prophet on the mount. “You are better than should.”

 

* * *

 

“I haven’t seen Niko since before I left for Moscow,” she confesses after a particularly long day of chasing useless, baseless leads. There’s something sick about using the source of her frustration to mitigate it, but it barely even registers now. “When I hit him.”

“You hit him? Naughty Eve.” Villanelle imitates a cadence Eve is sure was originally Konstantin’s, but her approving laugh spoils the effect. “What did you hit him with?”

“...my hand.”

“Pity. Konstantin hit me with a log—it left fantastic marks. Where did you hit him?”

“...well, I went to see him at the community center.”

“I meant, where on his _body_ did you hit him.”

“Oh, right. Uh… across the face. I slapped him… then I shoved him.”

“Why?”

“He wanted me to stop looking for you. He said it wasn’t safe, that he had to protect me.” She doesn’t know if she’s looking for absolution or the proof what she did is the kind of thing only someone without a conscience could feel good about, but finally admitting what she did is like hitting a release valve. Eve leans back in her chair, closing her eyes and picturing Villanelle doing the same, wherever the hell she is this week. “And then he said I was getting off on it, and I just… I don’t know, I snapped.”

“Naughty, naughty Eve. Hurting a man for telling you the truth.”

“I should tell you he was wrong. That you’re both wrong.”

“‘Should’. _Pfft_. I told you, should is boring. _He_ is boring. Your whole life is boring.”

“You’re certainly not boring.”

“Am I in your life, Eve?”

“Oh, come on. You know you are.”

“I do. I just didn’t think you would admit it.”

“You think I’d admit that I get turned on just from talking to you, but not that you’re a part of my life?”

“Yes, but I made you admit the other.”

“You’re part of my life, Villanelle. The biggest part, right now, given all I do at home is talk to you or think about you, and then I go to work and look for you or lie to make sure no one knows I’m still talking to you, or wonder what you’re doing. Hell, at this point I’m not sure I have a life that isn’t wrapped up in you. You’re literally everywhere, no matter what I do.” Villanelle has the uncanny habit of peeling back Eve’s skin to expose the truths hidden inside, but she’s started to learn to assemble those truths and reflect them back to flay her in turn. “I’m not going to bother to pretend otherwise anymore.”

“I have to go.”

“Villanelle, wait. Villanelle—goddamnit, godfucking _damnit_.” The fragile plastic of the burner creaks warningly in her hand and Eve sets it down carefully on the table, as gently as she can, then picks up her mug and hurls it at the wall instead.

It hits one of Niko’s paintings and knocks it half off the wall. Cold, leftover coffee slowly drips down the plaster to soak the baseboard and puddle on the kitchen floor.

“ _Shit_! Jesus.” Heart racing, Eve kneels to clean up her mess, doing her best not to cut herself on the shards.

 

* * *

 

The robe is laying over the back of a kitchen chair when she gets home from the bar. It’s the same green as the scarf Villanelle had stolen—the scarf she still has, if whoever cleared out her apartment was working with Villanelle herself, and it wasn’t the Twelve cleaning up after themselves and making sure there weren’t any traces left to follow.

Eve runs her fingers over the silk, tracing the delicate lines of a peacock picked out in gold, its tail a textured spread of gold and green and purple that made her feel a little dizzy to look at.

Elena had dragged her to the pub after work, refusing to let go of Eve’s wrist until she’d put in her order. Someone should have figured out she was worth more than an assistant’s position, because it only takes her half a pint to pry the admission that this is her first night out in months.

After the rest of that pint and most of another, Eve admits she’s lonely and confused and hasn’t been touched by anyone but herself since before Niko left.

Elena doesn’t notice the careful wording, thank god (because she and Villanelle may defy any logical terms or definitions, but what they’ve started to do seems to absolutely qualify as sexual) but she does suggest Eve pick someone up and take them home to “ride the lucky man—or lady, unless that was just an assassin fetish thing—to utter exhaustion”.

She went home, instead. To Villanelle, and her latest gift.

Maybe this is what Anna felt like. Maybe she rushed home and spent all her time hiding what she did with her nights, maybe she found ways to color her lies with enough of the truth locked tight behind her teeth to make them convincing, lest the world try to take away what she never should have had in the first place. Maybe she felt like the walls were closing in around her too, and would have done anything to freeze time so the inevitable consequences of her choices can’t catch her. It’s not a comforting thought, but there’s nothing to be done for it.

Nothing but get blitzed, at least. Eve grabs the robe, pushing Anna and her obvious fixation on Villanelle back in the grave. There’s a mostly full bottle of wine in the fridge, stopped with one of Niko’s obnoxious novelty corks.

Eve focuses on the cow’s wide smile and blissful, pupil-free eyes. “I always hated these stupid things.”

She chucks it in the bin on her way to the couch, kicking off her shoes and leaving them in the middle of the rug just because she _can_. The robe is so finely woven it feels cool to the touch; Eve rests her head on the arm of the couch and lets it slide through her fingers to pool in her lap over and over and over, an ouroboros of obscenely expensive fabric.

When the burner finally trills, her tongue is already too thick to shape words without sincere effort given to remembering how each curve and bend of their component parts ought to feel in her mouth. “I heard about Budapest,” she blurts out. “Did you really kill a _priest_?”

Silence hangs for a long moment, Villanelle chuckles. “Hello to you, too.”

“Seriously, was it you?”

“I thought you said you weren’t Catholic.”

“I’m not, but I still can’t believe you killed a priest.”

“Would it help if I said he was a very, very bad man?”

It shouldn’t, but it inevitably would. Probably even if it wasn’t true.

Drunkenly shoving the thoughts of her own ever-accumulating karmic debt to the same remote corner of her mind where she’d banished Anna, Eve raises a hand as if to swat the question away. “I’m going to take a raincheck on answering that one.” She takes a long swig of wine. “Did he have anything, or did you bleed this one out for not knowing enough, too?”

“Another name. Nothing immediately useful. Are you drunk?”

“Oh, I am _beyond_ drunk. I got the robe, by the way. And it was just as disturbing as ever to find out some criminal you called to play package service was in my apartment without my knowledge, thanks for asking.”

“I didn’t ask, but you’re welcome. Do you like it? How does it fit?”

“Of course I do. It’s gorgeous and expensive and it fits me perfectly, just like everything else you’ve given me.” Villanelle apparently knows her shape better than she does herself, because in all her life Eve has never managed to find a single piece of clothing that fit as well as Villanelle’s gifts. Not even her _wedding_ dress matched up.

It’s _infuriating_.

“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” Villanelle sniffs dismissively. “It’s not a crime to wear nice things, you know.”

“No, but it’s a little unsettling that you seem to somehow know my exact measurements without having ever taken them.”

“I have an eye for that sort of thing. You do like it, don’t you?”

“Are you kidding? I _love_ it.” She rubs the silk against her cheek. “I’ve never felt anything like this, which pisses me off… but not as much as it should, which pisses me even off more.”

“You are a complicated woman, Eve Polastri.”

“Says the international woman of mystery.” And the most complicated person Eve has ever met. “Where’d you get this, anyway?”

“Chiang Mai. I stopped through on the way here.”

Even through the haze of wine, Eve’s ears prick up at the mention of her _current_ location. “And where’s here, exactly?”

“Do you really think I’m going to tell you that?”

“No.” She lets out a loud breath. “So how was Thailand?”

“Very hot, but beautiful. And they have good mangos.”

“And silk robes, apparently.”

“They get the silk from cocoons. The worms make them, and when the moths go free they boil them, then slowly unwind them. _Bip, bip, bip_ ,” Eve chokes back a laugh at her imitation of pulling the cocoons apart, and Villanelle makes a quelling noise. “Don’t laugh, it’s a beautiful process.”

“ _You’re_ beautiful,” she blurts out, wine making the thought trip off her tongue easily.

“I know. Thank you,” Villanelle preens.

Eve scoffs. “You’re so arrogant.” She’d had the upper hand in Villanelle’s apartment, but control over what they do has been firmly in Villanelle’s hands since she sent that box. “What color underwear are you wearing?”

The long pause on the other end of the line is entirely gratifying. “Wow. I wasn’t expecting that.” Her voice goes low and teasing. “Are you sure you want to know?”

Eve rolls her eyes at the empty room. “Yes.”

“Are you _really_ sure?”

“ _Yes_ , I said.”

“I don’t know if I should tell you. What if you think I’m a dirty girl after?”

The familiar cocktail of amusement and aggravation that seem to sum up Villanelle flood and mix in her chest. “Oh my god, would you _please_ stop screwing around and just tell me what color your goddamn underwear are?”

“Fine. But only because you asked so nicely.” She pauses for effect. “They are purple.”

“Purple, okay.” Eve gathers her nerve. “So, are _you_ wet?”

“Yes,” Villanelle answers immediately, and Eve feels her stomach clench.

“We should have phone sex. I mean, you’ve already done it and I’ve listened, so we’ve effectively done it. I might as well finish the job and stick my hand down my pants too.”

“...I’m flattered, but you are very drunk, and should probably go to bed.”

“I’m not a child.”

With the overly patient tone of a parent handling a recalcitrant toddler, she says, “No, but you will be very difficult tomorrow if you wake up and decide I took advantage of you.”

Eve blinks, struggling to parse what exactly the hell _that’s_ supposed to mean. “That’s either… very mercenary or kind of sweet.”

“I can’t be both?” She laughs affectionately. “Go to sleep, Eve. And drink some water first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the wait on this! My week got a little hectic, and (for some inside 'but I don't WANT to kill my darlings' baseball) I was stubbornly attached to a scene I loved to pieces but decided ultimately threw off the momentum of the overall work. After trying a million ways to rejigger it or chop it down or edit the rest of the story around it, I've given in and killed said darling. 
> 
> It means I have a few more edits/tweaks left to make on the (for real this time, honest) final chapter, but it'll be up and out tonight.
> 
> ...or tomorrow, depending how soused I get at my anniversary dinner tonight. A drunk editor is a poor one, lbr. Either way, hopefully this chapter is a good apology for the delay.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >  
>> 
>> _how I laughed like a lord when my friends said beware of the flush in her cheek, and the flower in her hair; but I'm not laughing now, for my friends warned me well, though she promised me heaven, she sent me to hell._  
>  _(But now I am snared, they will punish me well: with a ladder to heaven, and a rope down to hell.)_  
> 
> 
> __  
> Shoutout to Harlots for providing me the perfect setup to this, the for-reals-and-for-actual last chapter. Hope you guys enjoy it!

Spitefully, Eve doesn’t drink the water; Villanelle is a condescending, stubborn asshole, and she’s not a _child_. She doesn’t need coddling.

Next morning’s headache says she really should have swallowed her pride and listened. Carolyn seems only too happy to let her call out from work; another piece of kindling on the growing bonfire that says even if she’s _not_ part of The Twelve, she’s hiding something. Any other day Eve would stew about it, but last night’s call keeps cycling back through in her head, blotting out the sun alongside all her other problems.

She spends the entire day in the robe, trying to figure out what it is she wants, let alone how she’s going to tell Villanelle after she figures it out.

So of course Villanelle calls earlier than she ever has before, startling Eve out of a half-doze. She fumbles clumsily for the phone, nearly dropping it in her haste to answer.

“Hey.”

“How’s your head?” Villanelle’s lack of regard for proper greetings has never been quite this much of a hindrance. With anyone else, she’d at least find a few minutes of refuge in smalltalk; with Villanelle, it seems _no_ talk can ever be small.

“Fine, thanks.” Faced with the reality of the moment and no time to wind herself up, all Eve’s careful speeches scatter to the four winds. “I meant it last night, what I said. What I asked for. It wasn’t the wine. I mean, it was, but only that I was too drunk to not blurt out what I usually know better than to say, but now that I’ve said it… we should do it. This. Sex. Together.” She winces. “I’ve always thought doing it over the phone was a little ridiculous, like one of those hotlines where women lie about their names, and you just describe what you’re doing and repeat cliched porn dialogue and somehow not hate the sound of your own voice, but other than that... I want to do it anyway, entirely sober, for reasons that are probably better left unexamined, and we’ve been circling this for ages. So, let’s just _do_ it, and get it over with.”

“Was that a proposition?” It’s not the world’s most encouraging answer, but at least Villanelle sounds intrigued.

“You know it was.” Eve hesitates, then plunges forward. “I just… I don’t really know what I’m doing, here. With the sex with a woman thing... or the phone sex thing. Or anything I’m doing in my life right now, honestly.”

“It’s okay, I do. We’ll go slow at first.”

“Okay. Yeah, slow at first sounds good. So, do we just… start? Or does one of us start, or—”

“Eve?” Villanelle’s voice is warm, and Eve relaxes minutely.

“Yes?”

“Shut up and put your hand down your pants.”

“Okay. Okay, I can do that.” Crooks a knee and runs her hand up her thigh, imagining villanelle’s face on the other end. Smug, probably, but she wants this too, and there’s a viciously satisfying side to being stuck in this loop _together_.

“Now touch yourself. _Over_ your underwear.” She makes a little disgusted noise in the back of her throat. “Cotton. Pfft.”

Eve stares down at her hand and the contrast between her skin and the royal blue of the obscenely expensive underwear she told herself she only ordered for herself to prove a point. “You can stop holding your nose, they’re not cotton.”

“They aren’t?”

“No, they aren’t.”

“Well, what _are_ they?”

“Silk.”

Villanelle claps delightedly, the sharp sound hurting Eve’s ears over the shitty burner speaker. “You got _me_ a present, too.”

“I mean, _I’m_ the one wearing them.”

“Exactly, you got me a present. Now, touch yourself over your pretty new lingerie. Gently, fingertips only.”

Eve hesitates, torn between obeying and satisfying her curiosity.

As ever, curiosity wins out.

“...Are you going to?”

“Am I going to what?”

“You know what.”

“No, what?”

“God, I hate you sometimes.” It’s eminently clear Villanelle _knows_ but she’s going to make her say it, and Eve prickles all over hot and cold with nerves and arousal. “Are you going to, you know… touch yourself, too. At the same time.”

“Do you want me to?”

“I mean, isn’t that the point?”

“Eve.” She stresses each syllable carefully. “Do you want me to.”

“...yes.”

“All right, then I will.”

Villanelle was right about the feel of silk, at least. Eve runs her fingertips gently from side to side, then traces a line over where the fabric is already soaked through. “Fuck,” she breathes out, running a nail of the direct center of the fabric, glancing off her clit and making her hips twitch. “God.”

“Does it feel good?”

“You know it does.”

“I do. I knew you would like silk, too. Are you wearing the robe?”

“And your perfume.”

“Perfect.” Villanelle’s inhale sounds a little like a moan, and Eve feels her own breath speed up. “Inside the fabric, now. Hold yourself in one hand, feel how good it is to be touched.”

She feels _swollen_ when she cups herself, and Eve nearly chokes on her own breath. “It’s not fair how good this is. We aren’t even doing anything, really.”

“Aren’t we? Slip a finger in, feel yourself from inside. Is that nothing?”

“Oh god. Oh, god.” Eve feels too hot, like her skin is tightening and melting at once. Sweat gathers to pool at the small of her back and the bend of her elbows and knees. “I don’t know how I’m this close already.” She laughs, a little hysterically, and rubs her fingers against the spongy, yielding flesh of her g-spot, over and over until her hips move with the feeling unbidden. “What are you doing to me?”

“I thought I might make you come. Use your other hand now, however you like it best.”

Eve circles her clit and then takes it between two fingers. It’s a little awkward with her left hand, but the idea of stopping so she can switch to her dominant hand is a thought too terrible to contemplate. She stop trying to talk and just chases orgasm with a single-minded focus while Villanelle does the same on the other end, her breathing fast and choppy.

She edges closer and closer to the void before she hurls herself into it with one hard pinch to the sensitive bundle of nerves in her fingers.

The first thing she notices when she’s alert enough to do anything but feel is Villanelle’s breathing, slow and synced to her own. Eve lets it roll over her, breathing in tandem until Villanelle’s patience breaks.

“...so?”

Eve laughs breathlessly. “If you want a detailed review, you’re going to have to wait until I’ve gotten some sleep and my brain is back online. Until then… I’m going to go with a solid ‘wow’. Maybe throw in a ‘holy _shit_ ’, too.”

“‘Wow’,” Villanelle repeats. “I like wow. Don’t hang up just yet, okay? I want to listen to you a little longer.”

“Okay.”

She wakes up to a dead phone on the pillow beside her, end call button left untouched.

 

* * *

 

“I’ve never had sex with a woman before.” Eve picks at the weave of her sweater, enlarging a hole she’d made the week after Bill died.

Villanelle’s shrug is nearly audible. “Well, obviously.”

“Obviously?”

“You told me you’d never kissed a woman. You have wildness in you, Eve Polastri, but you do not have sex without kissing.”

“Okay, first of all I did not tell you that…” The urge to deny the truth gnaws at her, but there’s no use pretending Villanelle hasn’t accurately assessed her overall romantic history. “And fine, you happen to be right about the kissing thing, but fuck you for assuming.”

“I like it. It means I can teach you how do do the way I like.”

“You _have_ to know how that sounds.”

“Like I am a very lucky woman?”

“Oh, you’re something all right.”

Undeterred, Villanelle pushes back to her original point. “And you did say it. You looked up at me and said ‘I’ve never done this before’. Maybe you didn’t mean _only_ kissing, but I could tell.”

Hearing a warped mirror of her own voice come from Villanelle’s throat makes her skin crawl, and Eve wrinkles her nose. “Don’t imitate me.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re freakishly good at it, and it weirds me out. And I meant stabbing someone when I said that.”

“I am freakishly good at a lot of things,” Villanelle says matter of factly, then pops her lips in a sort of triumphant _ta-da_ interjection. “And no, you didn’t.”

As much as she would like to pretend her choice to pull the knife had been premeditated, Eve remembers the crackling, perspective-altering sensation of looking down and seeing her hand move.

“Yeah, I really didn’t.” Eve tips her head back to stare at a crack in the ceiling and allows the question she’s been longing to ask slip out in the space between breaths. “Do you ever regret not coming with me when I asked?”

“Regrets are stupid,” Villanelle says scornfully, but Eve knows her well enough to hear the shade of lie beneath the truth. “They only slow you down.”

“Yeah, but… I mean, do you?”

The clock ticks through the span of a minute, then another. Finally, Villanelle clears her throat. “I don’t know. Maybe. Do you?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” Denying it would be pointless. In some universe, Villanelle took her up on it and they disappeared together. Somewhere, that version of them is off together exploring the hungry anxiety that grips Eve when she remembers the way flesh feels giving way under her fists… or they’ve killed each other, but the fantasy is still tempting. All her loose ends, tied in a neat little bow, and someone else to help her grab for all the freedom she can stand.

“It might have been nice,” Villanelle finally agrees. “We could have taken Irina, too. She’s very good as a pickpocket already. Too small for a human shield, but she was good bait. I’m sure she could do it again.”

“Okay, now you’ve ruined it.” Still, Eve laughs, helpless against the pull of Villanelle’s twisted sense of humor.

“Was it the human shield part?”

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, the idea of using a child as a human shield definitely shattered the fantasy for me.”

“What? I just said she wouldn’t do a good job of it.”

“That’s not better. I think it’s worse, actually.”

“Hmph. No pleasing some people, I suppose.”

Daringly, Eve does her best to imitate the low, knowing tone Villanelle takes when she’s measured and weighed exactly how much someone wants her accurately. “I don’t know. I think we’ve built up some evidence I’m not so hard to please after all.”

“ _Sexy_.” Villanelle must be stretching out, because there’s a creak of wood accompanied by the rustling of cloth. “Let’s talk more about that, and less about the annoying child.”

Eve feels a familiar languorous heat start to seep through her body, and she shifts in greedy anticipation. “Deal.”

 

* * *

 

The bottom falls out without her noticing it. It’s gone beyond her confession, because her life doesn’t revolve around Villanelle any longer; her life _is_ Villanelle. Work: there she is. Home: there, too.

Even sleep isn’t an escape. The only dreams she has anymore are about that night in Villanelle’s apartment. In them, it never ends like it did in her waking hours: sometimes they fuck, sometimes Eve kills Villanelle, sometimes Villanelle kills her. Sometimes, they kill each other.

The dreams should terrify her. And they do—but more than that, they excite her.

Villanelle doesn’t know how she takes her coffee, won’t order her perfect eggs or keep her safe and comfortable like Niko did, but she’s the key to finding out what the dogged _something else, not this, keep looking_ she’s always known she was meant for might be.

“Elena thinks I have a secret lover.”

Eve can hear Villanelle’s attention sharpen in the slightest uptick of intonation. “Do you?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know. It’s complicated?”

“Complicated, pah. You should just tell her you have a hot younger girlfriend who keeps you up all night.”

Inevitability looms ahead of her. Spotting the edge, Eve takes careful aim and leaps. “You could, you know.”

“I could what?”

“Keep me up all night for real. Here, in London.” Villanelle draws breath to answer and fear that it’s the expected no claws at Eve’s chest. “Look, you have to know after all this I’m not going to turn you in. Even if I wanted to, do you think anyone will believe I kept this contact with you off the books just because I was playing a long game? Look, I know it’s crazy, but literally everything about this is crazy. So why not? Just… fly out of wherever you are under one of the million aliases we don’t know about, and come back to England. You can even break into my house for old time’s sake.”

“Eve—”

“Don’t say no.”

“ _Eve_.”

“What?”

“I was only waiting for you to ask me.”

God _damn_ her steadfast refusal to just give a straight answer to any question the first time Eve asks it. “So… that means yes?”

“It means I will see you soon.”

 

* * *

 

Eve spends the next month on pins and needles. Villanelle doesn’t call again the night after she promises to come back, but Eve still sees her everywhere; in the flash of a white coat around the corner just ahead, the silhouette ducking into alley, the sound of footsteps just out of sight. They’re all Villanelle, and it gets to the point where she’s jumping at each and every shadow like a monster is nipping at her heels.

Elena accuses her of being on drugs and Kenny stares at her like a golden lab she had as a kid, all big concerned eyes. On the rare occasions she visits the office Carolyn seems oddly pleased by how little work Eve gets done now that anticipation sits like a stone on her chest and slowly crushes the breath from her lungs, and by the second solid week of the same she starts to make vague noises about understanding if Eve might want a bit of vacation time.

It would serve her right if Eve went ahead and took it, but she only smiles tightly and promises it’s probably allergies. Nothing to worry about.

After forty long days spent startling at every noise, it figures that when she comes home to find Villanelle sitting at her kitchen table she doesn’t even blink.

“Took you long enough.”

“I had a couple things I had to take care of. Did you miss me?”

“Well, I thought I saw you everywhere, so often it convinced my coworkers I’m on the edge of a nervous breakdown. So… yeah, you could say that.”

“ _Oh_. That’s so sweet.” She stands with an abrupt shove of her chair, eating up the distance between them in fewer strides than her slight frame ought to allow. “I missed you too.”

Kissing had always struck Eve like more of an auxiliary, leadup part of being with someone physically. And when the romanticism was stripped away kissing was just two equally germ-ridden mouths, licking away at each other… The mechanics of it never seemed to deliver on the promise. Niko had taught her better, but his kisses had been— _fine_. Good, but the kind of good that warmed her gently and made her want to keep him close. There had never been fireworks between them; they hardly even qualified as more than a hearthfire.

Kissing Villanelle is an explosion.

Eve wants more, and closer, and she yanks at Villanelle’s hair with impatient hands. Villanelle bites down on her lower lip in retaliation and she bites back, closing her jaw until Villanelle gasps. Adrenaline floods her system when she eases off on the pressure, then spikes again when she runs her tongue over where the imprint of her teeth lingers on the inside of Villanelle’s mouth.

“Wait, wait. Wait.” Pulling away, Villanelle leans her forehead against Eve’s, rolling her head into it like an affectionate cat. “Not that I am not happy to see you, but I have plans. I’ve been waiting for this.”

Eve doesn’t see the glint of the knife until it’s buried in her side. Her hand spasms in Villanelle’s hair and falls to her side, where red is slowly beginning to swallow the blue of her shirt.

“Now, the slate is clean. We can be truly even.” Villanelle pats her cheek sharply and makes her way over to the fridge, humming _La Marseillaise_ under her breath. “It was such a long trip, I am _starving_. What do you have to eat in here?” She pauses and turns back. “Oh, I wouldn’t pull it out just yet if I were you. My good aim only goes so far.”

 _She was very literal_ , Anna had told her. _Be careful, you’re her type_.

Frozen in the face of a looming conflagration, Eve can only stare down at the evidence of her debt repaid and let it burn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I WISH I COULD SAY I WAS SORRY, BUT THIS IS HARDCORE SORRY NOT SORRY TERRITORY. It turns out I am _exactly_ as big a jerk as PWB when it comes to "what the fuck, why, why would you do that" endings, oops. I mean, hey: at least I let them get in some action before the stabbing started. 
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who read or commented or left kudos, you guys are the absolute best.
> 
> (I'm planning at _least_ a smallish epilogue/sequel and possibly also something longer, but I'm not entirely sure when I'll be able to swing back for them, so for now: that's all, folks, tip your waitrons and try the veal.)


End file.
